Galway family offer video insight into reality of life after horrific attack

The parents of a Tuam man, that suffered horrific brain injuries following an unprovoked attack, now feature prominently in a new video that will be shown to secondary school students around the country.

The video which encourages young people to think before acting in an aggressive manner that could leave individuals with life threatening illnesses . . . or even dead.

It is called “Use Your Brain Not Your Fists” and it is geared towards second level students and particularly those who are heading out on debs or graduation nights.

Joe and Joan Grogan from Tuam are a major part of the ten minute video which will be distributed to secondary schools come the autumn.

It is almost six years since 22 year old Shane Grogan suffered horrific brain injuries in an unprovoked attack after attending the Galway Races. It is a night his parents will never forget.

Shane Grogan, who is now 27, has been resident in a number of care facilities since the attack took place in Tuam after he celebrated a very rewarding and extremely enjoyable final day of the Galway Races in 2012.

But now he is to feature on a video that has been compiled by a youth organisation in Leitrim where parents Joe and Rosie Dolan in Carrick-on-Shannon lost their son Andrew in a similar unprovoked attack in Mullingar.

He was a 20 year old student who was the subject of a vicious attack on a night out in December 2011 and died ten days later in Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.

The video features accounts from both families of their experiences along with advice from members of the Gardaí. They all want such aggressive activity among young people to stop.

Late last year Shane’s parents Joe and Joan Grogan were granted planning permission to demolish an old dwelling and construct a new house at Ballygaddy Road in Tuam which will be built to suit the needs of Shane. “We will finally be able to bring him home,” Joe told The Connacht Tribune.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.